Malice in London (13 page)

Then there was Charles Mansfield. Someone was evidently out to discredit him with the accusation that the he stood to benefit financially from Dockside. And with Brighton out of the picture, Mansfield had, by default, assumed the mantle of head cheerleader for the project on Southwark Council.

The question was, Who stood to gain the most from Dockside’s demise? Tess Morgan leapt immediately to mind. Evans had seemed favorably impressed by the woman, but there was no denying that she had a lot to lose if the project went ahead, as did the hundred or so other tenants she represented.

After two pints and half a dozen cigarettes, Powell realized he was rapidly approaching the point of diminishing returns, so he left the pub, stopping in the street market to purchase an eggplant. He was pleasantly surprised to bump into Sarah Evans, who was poring over the kiwis at a fruit stall. “This is a surprise,” he said.

She smiled. “I often stop here on the way home from work. You can find some incredible bargains at this time of day.”

Powell contemplated the bleak prospect of another evening alone. “Look, Evans, if you don’t have any plans, I mean if you’re not busy, why don’t you come back to my flat with me and I’ll make us dinner …” He trailed off awkwardly.

She looked at him suspiciously. “Your flat?”

Powell explained about Tony Osborne.

“I see, a little home away from home, is that the idea, sir?”

“Something like that.”

When Evans had worked with Powell previously on the Yorkshire moors murder case, she had felt herself attracted to him, as she sensed he was to her. He was, however, married, not to mention the fact that he was her superior. And she had her career to think about. By unspoken agreement, they had identified the boundary in their relationship over which neither of them was willing to step. She had the impression that Powell compensated for this by affecting a certain formality in his manner toward her at work. Being competitive by nature, she felt that he was always testing her in the most aggravating fashion. Curiously enough, they were much more relaxed in their social relationship—an arrangement with which they both seemed comfortable.

“Well, what do you say?” he was asking.

She smiled. “Why not? As long as you’re doing a curry, that is.”

Sarah Evans wandered around the flat with a glass of white wine as Powell got things ready in the kitchen. She emerged from the bedroom shaking her head in amazement. “Wow, black silk sheets!”

Powell smiled sheepishly. “What can I say?”

“Are you almost ready? I’m starving.”

“Come over here and pay attention, Evans. I am going to show you how to prepare
brinjal bharta.
Right. I’ve already heated the oil in this pot. I’m adding a half teapoon of cumin seeds and a quarter teaspoon of black
mustard seeds. Now I’ll put the lid on until the mustard seeds start to pop.”

Evans listened intently to the seeds sizzling in the oil. After about thirty seconds, she began to hear a faint pinging sound like miniature popcorn explosions.

“Now then,” Powell said briskly, uncovering the pot. “I’m going to fry one chopped onion and one tablespoon each of finely chopped garlic and ginger until they’re golden brown.” The ingredients hit the hot oil with a loud
chum.
“While I’m doing this, I’d like you take that eggplant on the counter there, remove the skin, then mash it up in a bowl.”

Evans regarded the large eggplant doubtfully. The skin was blackened and wrinkled as if it had been scorched with a blow torch.

“It’s supposed to look that way, Evans. I previously roasted it over a flame—you could do it under a grill or on a barbecue—to give it a sort of smoky flavor. Now get to work and be careful—it’s hot.”

As she mashed away, Powell added two chopped green chilies to the pot for heat, a coarsely chopped tomato, and a half teaspoon of turmeric powder. “If you’re too lazy to use the individual spices, this is the point you could add a good teaspoon of curry powder in place of the cumin, mustard, and turmeric. I’ll stir fry this for five or ten minutes until the oil separates from the mixture and floats to the surface. Then I’ll add the mashed eggplant, a tablespoon of lemon juice, and salt to taste, then cover and simmer for about fifteen minutes.”

Evans, who rarely had time to cook for herself, shook
her head in admiration. “I’ll never remember all this, you know.”

Powell smiled. “Then you’ll just have to keep coming over until you do. Time for another glass of wine before dinner, I think.”

A half hour later, Powell presented Evans with the fragrant vegetable curry, garnished with cilantro and served with basmati rice and the
chapatis
they had picked up on the way home at the Indian takeaway around the corner.

After they had demolished the meal, Powell put the kettle on for the coffee press. “I get my beans from Starbucks,” he said, thinking about Jill Burroughs.

Evans groaned contentedly. “You’ve missed your calling. You should quit the force and open a restaurant here in Soho, call it Powell’s Palace of Pappadams or something like that.”

He looked at her. “You’re just after my job.”

She laughed unselfconsciously. “Is it that obvious?”

Powell grinned, then said casually, “I went to see Sir Reggie this afternoon. I asked him to take a look at the Brighton and Morton postmortem reports.”

She perked up. “Oh, yes?”

He told her about the pathologist’s conclusion.

“It looks like we’re finally on to something,” she said, her eyes bright.

“Thank you for that insight, Evans.”

“I mean, it’s obvious, isn’t it? Someone is determined to put a stop to Dockside and will stop at nothing to do it. If you want my opinion, I think he killed Richard Brighton in an act of desperation and then, when he
realized he’d gotten away with it, he planned Clive Morton’s murder—”

“You said
he
,” Powell pointed out.

“Well, the way Morton was murdered—it’s not the sort of thing a woman would do.”

“Tell that to Mr. and Mrs. Borden.”

Evans frowned. “You think Tess Morgan had something to do with it, don’t you?”

He poured their coffees. “We can’t rule anything out at this point. After all, we don’t know much about her. Perhaps she has a boyfriend who is fanatically devoted to the cause, or maybe one of the other people she represents is more desperate than she is. Don’t forget it was a man who called about Charles Mansfield. In any case, I think we need to look a little more closely at Ms. Morgan’s disgruntled band of council tenants before we draw any firm conclusions.” He took a sip of his coffee. “There is, of course, a more fundamental flaw in your reasoning.”

She regarded him warily. “And what might that be?”

“Why kill Morton? He had a relatively small interest in the project. And the same question could be asked about Brighton. Why not just get rid of Atherton, the developer, and be done with it?”

“What are you driving at?”

Powell paused thoughtfully. “I think we need to find out if Clive Morton and Richard Brighton had something else in common besides Dockside.”

After walking Evans to the tube station in Tottenham Court Road, Powell wandered back through the heart of
Soho, taking in the sights and sounds. The narrow, crowded streets, the smell of garlic, laughing people spilling out of restaurants on their way to the theater, faces crowded behind pub windows and kids sleeping rough in urine-stained doorways.

He found himself in Rupert Street, amidst the gaudy pink and blue neon signs proclaiming
GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS, BOOKS VIDEOS MAGAZINES
, and
SCHOOLGIRL MODELS UPSTAIRS.
A man in a camel-hair coat, who looked like a slightly sinister Phil Collins, stood with his hands in his pockets and a cigarette in his mouth at the entrance to a narrow alleyway. Behind him, partially hidden in a dimly lit doorway beneath a sign that said
PEEP SHOW
, Powell could see a blonde woman in a short skirt. He approached the man and smiled.

The man looked him up and down. “Good evening, mate. What’s your fancy—videos or live entertainment?”

The next morning in Powell’s office, Detective-Sergeant Black was reporting on his further inquiries into Clive Morton’s affairs. “It turns out that Morton did have a regular dining companion—just like you thought, sir—a model named Samantha Jones.”

Evans shot Powell a withering glance.

He coughed politely. “This is most interesting, Black. Please continue.”

“Yes, sir. Miss Jones went to great lengths to make it clear there was nothing romantic going on between them. They were just casual acquaintances, as she put it.”

“That’s consistent with what his housekeeper told me about Morton’s love life. Tell me, Black, Ms. Jones wouldn’t be the kind of model who advertises in call boxes, by any chance?”

Black grinned self-consciously. “No, sir. She looks more like your high-fashion type. And quite ambitious, I’d say. I get the impression that she went out with Morton
just so she could be seen in fancy restaurants with a celebrity of sorts.”

“What a girl’s gotta do to get ahead,” Evans rejoined.

Powell ignored her. “It sounds like a classic symbiotic relationship. Morton gave Ms. Jones the exposure she needed to further her career, and having a glamorous escort no doubt lent old Clive a certain cachet. You didn’t happen to ask her what she thought about her companion’s laddish lifestyle, did you?”

“She knew about it all right. Said what he did on his own time was his business. But when I asked her about his drug use, she clammed right up. I was able to find out that they were out for dinner together the night he was murdered. She says that they parted company when they left the restaurant in Covent Garden and she has no idea where he went after that. She also claims she has no idea who might have done for him.”

“Did you believe her?”

“No reason not to, sir.”

Powell nodded. “Now it’s your turn, Evans.”

She glared at him. “I was going to get started yesterday evening, sir, but I got detained.”

He smiled brightly. “I’ll overlook it this time, provided you make up for it today. I’d like you to delve a bit more deeply into Tess Morgan and her resident’s association.”

“Yes, sir,” she said between clenched teeth.

“You carry on with Morton, Bill, and see if you can dredge up anything else on him. And we need to see if we can trace his movements from Saturday night, when he was at the Fitzrovia, up to his murder.”

Black nodded.

“I forgot to mention it earlier, but I had a most interesting chat with a chap named Les Wilkes at a sex club in Rupert Street last night.”

“A sex club?” Evans asked.

“Research, Evans, research.”

“The sacrifices we make,” she remarked dryly.

“Old Les is a bit of a snout,” Powell continued. “There isn’t much that goes on in Soho he doesn’t know about. To make a long story short, it seems that Clive Morton was a mainstay of the local economy. According to Wilkes, he had a thousand-pound-a-week cocaine habit.”

“Maybe Dockside wasn’t the only thing he and Richard Brighton had in common,” Black observed.

Powell smiled grimly. “We know they probably share the same killer. Just to be on the safe side, it’s probably best that I break the news to Paul Atherton and Charles Mansfield.”

An hour later, Powell found himself once again in the offices of Paul Atherton in Bermondsey. The enchanting Ms. Kelly escorted him as before into Atherton’s office. The developer looked surprised to see him.

“Chief Superintendent, this
is
an unexpected pleasure.”

“I apologize for not calling ahead, but something has come up and I thought I should talk to you as soon as possible.”

“Yes, of course.” A look of concern creased his face.

“You’ll recall the last time I was here, I raised the possibility of a connection between the murders of Richard Brighton and Clive Morton …”

Atherton nodded.

“There now seems little doubt that they were killed by the same person.” Powell watched Atherton’s reaction closely.

Atherton frowned. “I’m not sure I understand …”

Powell gave him a summary of the forensic case put together by Sir Reggie.

Atherton did not speak for a few moments. “What do think it means?” he asked eventually.

“I was hoping you could tell me, Mr. Atherton.”

The developer’s expression evinced an air of puzzlement. “I still don’t understand. If someone was so determined to stop Dockside—I assume that’s the inference one is supposed to make from all of this—wouldn’t it have been easier just to get rid of
me
? It’s true that Richard Brighton actively supported the project, but it’s not as if he were the only one. And as you know, Clive Morton was only a small player in the scheme of things.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Powell agreed.

“I’m at a complete loss, Chief Superintendent.”

And now to broach a potentially delicate subject. “Something else rather odd has come up. We got a call yesterday from a man claiming to know something about Dockside. He alleged that Charles Mansfield, the local Conservative councillor, stood to benefit financially from the project.” He left the rest unsaid.

Atherton looked at him. “What exactly are you suggesting?”

“I’m not suggesting anything. I simply want to confirm that Clive Morton was the only other person besides yourself with a financial stake in the project.”

“Very well, Chief Superintendent,” he said stiffly, “I will confirm it for you. And in case you have any doubts about the matter, I can assure you that bribing politicians is not my style.”

“Do you have any idea who would make such an accusation?” Powell asked patiently.

Atherton’s jaw tightened. “I have my suspicions. But I’m not going to lower myself to their level by bandying about unsubstantiated allegations.”

“I understand there has been considerable organized opposition to Dockside,” Powell ventured. “The council tenants that are directly affected—the group led by Tess Morgan, for instance.”

“My battle has never been with the tenants, Chief Superintendent. I have simply put forward a proposal to the elected representatives of the borough to develop a derelict piece of property. It is the politicians who are ultimately responsible for deciding what is in the best interests of their constituents. Unfortunately, Ms. Morgan doesn’t seem to see it that way.”